flower pots and puffy paint

"worst meal ever Mum" :)

(penne napolitana and chocolate bikkie) ( decided maybe I should cook this every night)

Today was one of "those" days... blerrrrggg. "Crawl back into bed" days... " we've got nothing to do" days...all of us just a little bit "not quite right" they happen, not often thankfully, but they always leave me drained and ..well... "off centre". Jared still is 100%, Amahli has the two biggest blood blisters from her teeth trying to break through the skin (crap how that must be painful), Jumeirah was ok but not really wanting to do much. Made for a long day. And then, suddenly the hero (in the form of daddy) arrives home and all kids are bright, perky, giggly and having a great time out playing. I should be grateful, and really, I am cos hes fantastic. But it left me feeling like "whats the point?" in all the stuff I do to try and make their lives full of fun and cool stuff. I know, I know, really they love being with me...as I said, its just one of those days :)

Anyway, to top it off the camera is throwing in the towel as well.. but lucky for you I had some cool stuff from yesterday I havent yet posted so here it is!

Yesterday, with lots of complaining, we went to Bunnings. Ah bunnings... the male version of Spotlight for me. Almost as much awesome stuff, miles of aisles to get lost in, and a kids play area to boot! And so, once we had looked at three " mummy and daddy things", I took them down to the play area, whilst daddy continued to browse in peace. Beside the play area, they had set up a table of crafty looking things. Jumeirah, Amahli and I decided to take a look and found they were decorating pots ( apparently every saturday and sunday they have a craft section for kids thats free!) with only one child and so we went to join them. ( Whilst Jared sat like a garden gnome and watched).

These are the finished products! We are going to put them as the entrance to fairy glen. ( WHICH IS ACTUALLY GROWING!!!!)

In the afternoon, we had a go at a great little painting project called Puff Paint pictures.

How to make it:

3 tablespoons of salt
3 tablespoons of self raising flour
water to mix it to a runny paint
food colouring
cardboard squares to paint on ( they need to fit into your microwave so i do mine about A4 folded in half and half again)

Now we made our paint, then split the mixture into 4 sections so we could colour it in different colours. We used cotton bus to paint it with.

Then once the picture is done, put it in the microwave for about 10-15 seconds. (it will need to be watched, it doesnt take long to "puff" up and left too long, you will have to work out a way to explain to anyone else living in the house why there is soot and cinders in the microwave and strange smelling smoke) ( and yes it did happen :) )
Alternatively, you can let it dry in the sun but it doesnt puff as much.
This is such a great sciencey crafty with really effective results :)